


&©il*u |*}03 



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i.6 




THE CAUSE OF EACE DECLINE 
IS NOT EDUCATION. 




y 

GEORGE J.^ENGELMANN, M.D., 

LATE PROFESSOR OF DISEASES OF WOMEN AND OPERATIVE MIDWIFERY, MISSOURI 

MEDICAL COLLEGE AND POST GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, ST. LOUIS ; 

LATE PRESIDENT AMERICAN GYNECOLOGICAL SOCIETY, PRESIDENT 

SOUTHERN SURGICAL AND GYNECOLOGICAL SOCIETY, HON. 

PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF OBSTETRICS 

AND GYNECOLOGY, ETC., 

BOSTON. 



[Reprinted with additions from Popular Science Monthly, Jane, 1903.] 



i'soog 2 * 



\ 



$ 



£<0 



[Reprinted with additions from The Popular Science Monthly, June, 1903. J 



EDUCATION NOT THE CAUSE OF RACE DECLINE. 

By GEORGE J. ENGELMANN, M.D., 

BOSTON. 

~\7"ALE graduate families have been growing steadily smaller, says 
-*- Mr. Clarence Deming in an interesting review (Yale Alumni 
Weekly, March 4, 1903) based upon class returns which show a 
gradually decreasing fecundity from 1810 to 1880 : this statement 
together with the small size of the Harvard family as revealed by the 
report of President Eliot, has justly directed attention to the ap- 
parently sad family condition prevalent among college graduates, 
or, as it has been expressed, among 'the highly educated portion of 
our population'; and it is generally assumed that this small family 
size pertains mainly to the highly educated, that conditions are 
better among the — let us say — less highly educated. It has been in- 
ferred that college graduates' families stand alone in not reproducing 
themselves and 'not adding to the increase of the population,' and 
that other portions of the population do so reproduce and add to the 
increase. Accepting this, it naturally follows that education, which 
has caused the mischief, must be suitably regulated. One suggestion 
is to shorten the term of study. But are the premises correct? 

Speculation has been rife, and the small size of the graduate 
family is discussed far and wide without ever a thought as to what the 
conditions among the great mass of our native population may be, 
and yet it would be well to establish the facts in the case, and to de- 
termine the existence of an exceptionally low fecundity among college 
graduate families before deciding on cause and cure. 

True, the average graduate family does not reproduce itself, but no 
more does that of any other group of our native American population, 
and the surviving family, the net family of the college graduate is 
not smaller, but actually larger than that of his less highly educated 
brother. This points to an unusually low rate of reproduction for the 
entire native-born element of our population; in fact the conditions 
now existing among the American people are worse than those found 
in any other country. They are those of a decadent race, those of 
Greece and Eome in the period of decline ; and again and again, within 
the past few years, have I urged that the attention of thinking men 
be seriously given to a consideration of the alarming status attained. 



i73 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



To present this properly, and demonstrate the part taken by 
each group in the movements of population, it is essential to consider 
class reproduction; not alone fecundity and size of family, but marriage 
rate as well must be taken into account. In both the status of the 
college graduate as a class is most creditable, and at variance with 
all that has been assumed, though conditions differ greatly in indi- 
vidual institutions. 

The marriage rate is surprisingly high for the highly educated, or, to 
be precise, for 4,408 college graduates, even if the 88.7 per cent, of 
Brown '72 and the 87 per cent, of the Bowdoin classes of 1875 and 
'77 is above the average, which is 79.4 per cent, for 16 Yale, Brown, 
Bowdoin and Princeton classes, and 75.4 per cent, if we include the 9 
Harvard classes '72- '80 with their low marriage rate of 71.09 per cent. 

My investigations show that the college graduate, the academic grad- 
uate (conditions differ for scientific graduates), marries 7-7% years 
after leaving college, at nearly 30 years ; we must compare the alumnus 
25 years out, up to 47y 2 years of age, with the age group 40-49 of the 
native American male, with a marriage rate of 79.02 per cent., slightly 
below the college average. 

Table I. 

Marriage Rate. 30 Classes, 4,408 Graduates.* 

Group JtO — Jf9 years of age, approximately. 



3,015 College Graduates, 22.5-47 years of age. 



27 Classes from 5 
Colleges. 



Brown .... 
Bowdoin . 

Yale 

Yale 

Princeton. 
Yale 

Harvard 



1 25 years 
j 20-23 






25 

25 

25 

25 

25 

25 
71.06 
71.1 



so 



1 

2 
1 
1 
1 
10 



o 



72 88. 7$ 

'75 and '77 86.9 



Si * 



73 

69 

76 

'60-79 

'72-'80 



82.3 
81.3 
80.4 
78.4 

71.09 



545 College Graduates, 10-11 years out of College. 



Harvard... 
Princeton. 



10 

11 
10 



79 
86 
91 



54.2 
51.9 
75.4 



Population at large. 






79.02 
82.46 



68.8 
74.5 



Male population 

of 

Massachusetts, 

40-49 
Years of Age. 



Native born. 
Foreign born. 



30-39 years. 



Native born. 
Foreign born. 



Group 20 — 29 years of age, approximately. 



848 Graduates 74 Years out of College, 
22.5-30 Years of Age. 


Male Population of Massachusetts, 
20-29 Years of Age. 


Princeton 7J 1 '95 
Harvard 7J 1 '95 


43!« 
26# 


27.7* 
36.2* 


Native born. 
Foreign born. 



* This table is arranged according to rate of marriage. 



RACE DECLINE. 174 

Accepting 22.5 as the age of graduating,* graduates of 1895, 7^ 
years out of college would have attained the age of 30 and must have 
married, between the ages of 22.5 and 30, so that they are comparable 
to native males of the age group of 20 to 29, with a marriage rate of 
27.7 per cent. The Harvard, class of '95 shows a somewhat lower 
rate, 26 per cent., but the Princeton class of the same year a very much 
higher one — 43 per cent. The Princeton class of 1891, ten years 
only out of college, has 75.4 per cent, of its members married, more 
than any Harvard class as far back as '60 and probably farther shows 
after its twenty-fifth anniversary. 

These figures, though small and bearing on only a few of the many 
colleges, certainly indicate that the male college graduate in this 
country is not more given to solitary life than the native male of all 
classes throughout the state and that the supposition of Eubin and 
Westergaard for Denmark, that the marriage frequency of the profes- 
sional class is only two thirds that of the average does not hold good 
for the American alumnus, and probably not for the professional 
classes of the United States. It shows that a larger per cent, of college 
graduates marry, and those of some colleges marry in such numbers 
that it would appear that they marry as early as does the average 
native male, because the percentage in the earlier years is the same 
for average males and graduates. 

The marriage rate of Harvard graduates alone differs from that 
recorded for all alumni investigated, from Princeton, Yale, Brown 
and Bowdoin, so that the alumnus of this institution can not well serve 
as an exponent of the highly educated part of our population, or 
even of the average college graduate, differing distinctly from this 
group and less than that of the native male of the same age 
throughout Massachusetts with a marriage rate of 79 per cent. (I 
recall that for purpose of comparison with the 25 year graduates, I 
have taken the age group 40 to 49 of the native population, which 
presents the \ery nearly highest marriage rate, 79.02 per cent.)f 

* 22.5 years is the average age of graduating for the Princeton classes 
1901-02, 22.6 for Yale classes 1882-92, 22.8 for Yale 1892-02; for a crude 
average 22.5 will answer. For Harvard the age of entering is 19 with a prob- 
able 22.9 for graduating, an approximation necessitated by the non-existence 
of authoritative data. 

t My figures are based on a study of 4,408 alumni from leading eastern 
colleges: 848 graduates 1y 2 years out of college, 545 10 and 11 years out 
and 3,015 25 years out, and I have been careful to record rates for all older 
classes, i. e., graduated more than 25 years ago, as given at the time of 
the twenty-fifth anniversary, for purposes of comparison on a just basis. This 
explains some trifling discrepancies which may be observed between my figures 
and others recently published. To me it seemed the only correct procedure. 
The Harvard classes '78, '79 and '80 are reported on a 23, 21 and 20 years' 
basis respectively, making but a slight difference, as may be seen by a study 
of Princeton '91, 10 years out of college. 



i75 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The fecundity of graduate marriages, the total number of children 
born (gross fertility) is a trifle less than that of the average native 
marriage, rarely above, as in the Princeton class of '76, with 3.2 
children: it is 2.55 for the Yale classes 1860-80, 2.4 for Brown '72, 
2.07 for Harvard 1872-80, 2 for Bowdoin 1875 and '77 as compared 
to 2.7 for the native American family of Massachusetts according to 
the refined statistics of Kuczynski, which show a greater fecundity for 
the native population than is proved by my studies in St. Louis and 
those of Dr. Chadwick in Boston, 2.1 and 1.8 respectively.* Even 
granted so high a fecundity as 2.7 for the average native family, the 
surviving children under this assumption are only 1.9 to the family; 
the lower death rate for children of the cultured and well-to-do — 10 
per cent, in college graduate families against 28.5 per cent, for the 
lower classes — reverses the relative status when we consider the actual 
family size ; the number of surviving children, the net fertility : this is 
greater for the graduate family (see Table II.) ; and it is the surviving 
children who serve to reproduce the population. 1.9 (1.92 precisely) 
is the largest possible number for the native population of Massa- 
chusetts, as compared to 2.7 for Princeton, 2.28 for Yale, 2.26 for 
Brown, 1.86 for Harvard 1872-80, 1.S8 for Bowdoin. 



Table II. f 
Death Rate in Families of Professional and Laboring Classes. 





Number of 

Children to 

each Married 

Couple. 


Death. 




Parentage. 


a 
u 

o 

m 

< 


bb 

a 

\> 
"> 

3 

XII 


u 

a -a 


at 






2.34 
2.69 
4.53 

i.5-2 
U.95 


2.1 

1.92 

8.01 

S.S1 
3.U 


0.24 
0.77 
1.52 

1.21 
1.81 


10 * 
28.6 
33.5 

26.7 
36.6 
12.84 
24.72 


) 




> United States. 




J 






Denmark-, j Artisan aDd Laboring Class .... 


1 Europe. 


.Berlin. | AH children 







* My own data are obtained direct from the mother and will more correctly 
represent existing conditions than figures like those of Kuczynski secured by 
additions for possible omissions to state registration records. I must add that 
they show, on an average, the number of children borne in 10 years of mar- 
riage, which should be very near tils' total. 

t This table does not quite indicate what I wish to show, as the mortality 
rate compared with that of the graduate family is not the mortality in families 
of the lower and laboring classes, but in those of the entire population, which 
includes the educated and professional classes. 



RACE DECLINE. 176 

Graduate families are, as these figures show, not only not smaller, 
but they are larger than those of the native-born American population 
of all classes, and larger than would have been expected from what is 
known of the relative fecundity of rich and poor in other countries. 
The relation of the educated and professional classes to the masses, to 
the laboring or artisan class, however, is the same as that shown for 
Copenhagen by Eubin and Westergaard, the total number of offspring 
born being somewhat larger for the family of the artisan; the real 
family, the number of the surviving, on the contrary, being somewhat 
larger for the educated, for the reason of the lower death rate in such 
families. 

The rate of child-birth has been decreasing in college families, but 
it has been decreasing throughout the civilized world, slowly in the 
old world, with astonishing rapidity in the new, that is, among the 
native American-born of our population, until it has reached a 
minimum; the number of children to the native American family 
of all classes (and in this lies the danger) being less than it is in any 
other country, France even not excepted, which has long been known 
to be at the point of stagnation. 

These are facts ; the figures have all been elaborated and repeatedly 
presented so that any hypothesis is unnecessary. The American popu- 
lation is not holding its own; it is not reproducing itself, and the 
highly educated do not stand alone in this. 

Important as is the fact of our racial decline, bearing as it does 
upon our future as a nation, it has not been observed, because of the 
fair general rate of child-birth, due to the much greater fecundity of 
the foreign element, which is from 2 to 2% times that of the native, 
thus bringing the total birth rate of the state to an equality with that 
of France, — 22.4 per 1,000 living population, or above it. 

This is true of six representative states, for which we have fairly 
reliable statistics ; in some, the birth rate is distinctly higher than that 
of France, as high as 26 and 28 per 1,000, but even in such states, that 
of the native-born is far below that of France. So in Massachusetts, 
with a total birth rate for the state of 27.78, practically 28 per 1,000 
living population, that of the native-born is only 17, whilst that of 
the foreigner is over 52 per 1,000. 

The gross fertility, the total number of children born is 2.1 in 
France, and for the native population of the above state it is said 
to be 2.69 for 3,015 graduates from 25 classes 1870-80, in five eastern 
colleges it is 2.34. But these figures may be ignored, as it is not the 
total number of children born, but the surviving who add to the popu- 
lation, and it is these whom we consider: the surviving children 
of college graduates, 2.7 for Princeton, 2.28 for Yale, 1.86 and 1.88 



i77 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 

for Harvard and Bowdoin, respectively, must be compared with the 
number of surviving children for the native American population of 
the state of Massachusetts, which is 1.9, less, according to my own 
observations. 

Less than 2 surviving offspring — 1.9 — to reproduce the race for all 
native- American marriages, 2.1 for those of the limited group of college 
graduates ! 

This indicates a remarkable change since the days of Benjamin 
Franklin, who tells us that 'one and all considered each married couple 
in this country produced 8* children.' Though this is not a conclu- 
sion drawn from statistical study, it is yet indicative, and in harmony 
with my own deduction from genealogical records. Whatever the 
precise figures be, all observations agree as to the high fecundity of 
the American colonies, and tell of the great change which has taken 
place in one short century. 

From conditions better than those in any other country, five and 
more children to the family, such as led to the Malthusian theory of 
superfecundation and to the fear of over population of the earth's 
surface, we have passed in hardly one hundred years to our present 
condition, with a fecundity for the native-born below that of any other 
country, such that the American race is unable to reproduce itself with 
a birth rate of 17 per 1,000 population,! hardly 2 children to the family ! 

These facts I first presented in 1901, J with records up to the end 

* Let no one discredit this and call it impossible ! Though surprising to 
us with a knowledge of the present, these figures are even exceeded at this day 
by the French-Canadian with a fecundity of 9.2 children to the family, as I 
gather from a study of one thousand families found in the records of Quebec 
life insurance companies: 9.3 for the rural, 9.0 for the urban population, is 
the fecundity of the child-bearing woman, not the fecundity per marriage, but 
nearly so, as sterile marriages are rare. The birth rate of the Russian peas- 
antry in the Kaluga district, near Moscow, is 7.2 children to the marriage. 
Throughout Norway it is 5.8 at the present time, as much as it was in the 
American colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence. 

t That the native population is dying out, and that at an alarming pace, 
is evident, not alone from a birth rate much lower than that of France, but 
also from a comparison with that of Berlin. In France the birth rate was 22.5 
per 1,000 living population; that of the native population of Massachusetts is 
17 per 1,000; in Berlin, 1891-95, with 10 births for every 100 women of child- 
bearing age, the births were one ninth behind the number necessary to keep the 
population stationary, whilst in Massachusetts the birth rate is much lower, 
6.3 births for 100 adult American born women of child-bearing age. The re- 
sult is self-evident. 

X The subject has been treated in the following papers by the writer: 'The 
Increasing Sterility of American Women, with Increase of Miscarriage and 
Divorce, Decrease of Fecundity.' Engelmann, Jour, of the Amer. Med. Assoc, 
October 5, 1901. 'Decreasing Fecundity Concomitant with the Progress of 
Obstetrics and Gynecology.' Engelmann, Philadelphia Med. Jour., January 18, 
1902. ' Birth and Death Rate as influenced by Obstetric and Gynecic Practice.' 
Engelmann, Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., May 15, 1902. 



RACE DECLINE. 178 

of the eighteenth century, when the decline began, and at the same 
time I published complete statistical data for the end of the nine- 
teenth century, when the lowest level had been reached. 

I have shown that a gradual decline had already taken place dur- 
ing the colonial period from 6 and more children in the seventeenth 
century to 4.5 at the end of the eighteenth; then 2 at the close of 
the nineteenth ; data for the intervening period I had none. It seemed 
reasonable to conjecture a gradual decline with developing civiliza- 
tion and rapidly increasing luxury of life, but proofs were wanting. 

The Yale records fill the gap, and supply the intervening data I 
had so far persistently but vainly searched for; they distinctly portray 
the gradual decrease in the rate of child-birth and enable me to com- 
plete the table, period by period, which shows the remarkable changes 
that have taken place in family life in this country. To this the 
highly educated portion of our population is no exception. The decline 
is general, not confined to any one element, it is the same for college 
graduate and laboring class, for all American-born, for highly edu- 
cated and less highly educated, so that higher education can not be the 
causative factor. 

This table presents a startling record for a young and vigorous 
community, and it is but natural that we should ask for the cause 
of this rapid decline in birth rate among all classes of the American- 
born : where are we to seek the explanation ? It can not be in physical 
inability, though the ravages of venereal disease are leaving their 
traces more clearly with increasing civilization and centralization, and 
constantly add to the number of the sterile. (This is 2.5 per cent, 
among a simple, hard-working people in the interior of Eussia 
(Kaluga), and in Norway, whilst 20 and 25 per cent, of marriages 
are barren in the civilized and infected communities of the United 
States and of France.) I find 25 and 30 per cent, of families barren 
among the married graduates of large and centrally located colleges, 
as low as 9 per cent, in a Princeton class with high marriage rate and 
large families, an exceptionally healthy condition when we remember 
that 20 per cent, of all native marriages in the entire state of Massa- 
chusetts are childless. 

The cause for this decline in family size can not be sought in the 
increased age for marriage, as this is delayed for all educated and 
professional men in this country as in England by nearly three years, 
from 27.2, the average age of first marriage for the native groom in 

* This steady decrease in the number of offspring in college graduate fami- 
lies is admirably shown by Professor Thorndike in his article on ' Decrease in 
Size of American Families' (Pop. Science Monthly, May, 1903). Unfortu- 
nately he does not give either marriage rate or the number of surviving children 
and pictures only graduate families. 



179 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Table III. 
Race Decline. Decrease in Size of the American Family. 









Number 












of Children to 












Each Married 












Courde. 


From table oi 












L. Thorndike 


excluding 


Period of 
Observation. 


Locality or Group. 


No. of 
Cases. 


a 


hi) 

o 


families where husband 
died in first 10 years of 








o 


V 


married life — 


for Middle- 








PQ 


°> 


bury and N. 


Y. Univ., 








3 


3 


for Wesleyan 


all married 








< 


m 


are taken. 

All Childre 














n Born. 


Am. Colonies 


Benjamin Franklin. 
Genealogical Records. 




8 








1700-1750 


503 


6.6 






>. 




M t>» 


1750-1800 


" " 


784 


6.1 






3 


p 




" 


Am. Colonies (Sadler). 




5.2 






■O 






d 


New York State. 




5.2 






5 


"s 


*.t 


1726-1779 


Hingham (Town Rec). 


521 


4.3 






13 


£ 




1727-1784 


Salem 

Hingham (Holyoke). 




4.6 
4.6 










1783 


1803-09 
1810-19 


5.6 

4.8 






1800-1830 


Genealogical Records. 


213 


4.6 








1804-1811 


Portsmouth. 




4.3 




1820-29 


4.1 






1810-1842 


Yale Grad. Class Rec. 


447 


4.13 




1830-39 


3.9 


4.5 


4.0 
3.2 
2 9 


1842-1860 


" " " " 


839 


3.33 




1840-49 


3.4 


3.3 


1861 


Bowdoin " " 


45 


2.62 


2.85 


1850-59 


2.9 


2.2 


1860-1879 


Yale Grad. " " 


1104 


2.55 


2.28 


1860-69 
1870-74 
1875—79 


2.8 
2.3 

-I Q 


2.6 


2.5 


1872 


Brown " " " 


53 


2.45 


2.26 






1876 


Princeton Gr. " " 


118 


3.2 


2.7 






1872-1877 


Harvard " " " 


888 


2.21 


1.97 






1877-1880 


" " " " 


513 


1.87 


1.66 






1885 


State of f native-born. 
Mass. j foreign-born. 




2.69 


1.92 








4.5 


3.01 








Boston Labor Class, 












1870-1880 


Chadwick.* 
St. Louis Labor Class, 


1374 


1.9 








1870-1890 


Engelm.* 
St. Louis Higher Class, 

Engelm.* 
Boston Upper Class, 


804 
114 


2.1 
1.8 








1900 


Engelm.* 
Female Col. Grad., 


600 




1.8 






1885 


Wright* 

Female Col. Grad., 


804 


1.3 








1900 


Smith.* 
Female Col. Grad., 
England. 


343 

58 


1.8 
1.5 


1.6 







Massachusetts, to 30 for the male, and for the educated female 
from 24.3, the average age of first marriage for the hride, to 
26.4, but as the number of surviving offspring is not less, this delayed 
marriage can not be looked upon as a factor in determining the small 
size of the graduate family. The cause is not to be sought in educa- 
tion, in so far as the male is concerned. The educated female is in 
a different class; the fecundity of the female college graduate in this 
country is lower than that of any other native group, and this low 
birth rate holds good for her English sister as well, the very small 
size of her family — smaller than that of the American alumna — 
standing out in striking contrast with the much higher fecundity of 
the English people, which is nearly double that of the native-born of the 
United States. 



* Average 10 years of married life. 



RACE DECLINE. 180 

Family shrinkage seems clearly referable to the strenuous, nerve- 
racking life of the day, to the struggle, not for existence, but for a 
luxurious existence, to the ever-increasing desire for the luxuries of 
life and the morbid craving for social dissipation and advancement. 
It is due, as plainly expressed and openly advocated by many, to the 
desire to have no children or only such a number as husband and wife 
believe in their wisdom suitable and adapted to their ideals of com- 
fort, and to their supposed financial possibilities; the most important 
factor is the "deliberate and voluntary avoidance, the prevention of 
child-bearing on the part of a steadily increasing number of married 
couples,* who not only prefer to have but few children, but who 'know 
how to obtain their wish' " (Dr. John S. Billings). Professional ob- 
servation and the plainly expressed ideas of men and women who do 
not hesitate to make known their views substantiate the above, as 
does the startling decrease of fecundity and the corresponding increase 
in sterility in the face of the scientific progress of the day in all that 
pertains to the physical well-being and health of woman. This de- 
crease of fecundity in the face of advance in obstetrical and gynecolog- 
ical science, which should lead to a healthier condition of the child- 
bearing organs — a decrease confined to one element of the community, 
the native American — clearly proves the condition to be one determined 
by the volition of that element. Families are small among all classes 
of the native-born, large among all classes of the foreign-born popula- 
tion, showing that the cause of this low fecundity is not universal but 
it is one confined to the native element only; this limiting of the 
small family to the native of all classes in itself would prove that 
education is not that cause, were such proof not made needless by 
the fact that the family of the educated man is actually larger than 
that of the native male throughout the state. 

Let us no longer beat about the bush and attribute the low fecundity 
now prevailing to later marriages and higher education. This ex- 
planation has been accepted because it is a tradition and universally 
credited; it is not so in other countries, and it has never been proved 
to be so for the United States. Theoretically later marriage must, it 

* I have used the word couples intentionally, though in the original it is 
women; Dr. Billings says that the cause of declining fecundity is in the ' vol- 
untary prevention of child-bearing on the part of a steadily increasing number 
of married women,' indicating that the loife is mainly at fault, whilst in truth 
it is the husband to an equal and even a greater extent, according to my ob- 
servation. 

In defense of the American woman it is but right to call attention to this 
fact and to correct the false impressions which are prevalent. This assertion 
is substantiated by experience and by the carefully prepared Michigan registra- 
tion reports. 



181 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 

would seem, lead to the lowering of the birth rate. Facts plainly dis- 
prove this, and why should higher education lessen the size of the 
family as all seem to assume ? Because the years of marriage are less ? 
This is a hasty assumption as will appear when we recall that all 
children are born on an average within 7% years after marriage, some 
authorities even say within 5 years. Accepting the longer term of 7% 
years, this leaves the alumnus who marries 7 years after graduating 
in his thirtieth year, at 37%, and his wife, who marries at the latest 
at 26.4, in her thirty-fourth year. The end of the average child-bearing 
period falls accordingly, for both the late marrying graduate and his 
spouse, still in the most vigorous period of life, 37% for the educated 
male, 34 for the female, not so late as to interfere in any way with the 
family prospects and demonstrating that family increase is not 
necessarily limited by this delay of marriage by a few years. 
This is true for the college graduate; for the entire highly edu- 
cated portion of our population I have no data and make no 
assertions. No figures are available for a group such as this, and 
this must be noted as the family size of this class has of late been 
considered. It is too comprehensive a term, and has been somewhat 
indiscriminately used in recent discussions of race decline; even far- 
reaching conclusions bearing upon this large group of the highly edu- 
cated have been based upon data derived from the graduates of a single 
institution. Not even from those of several institutions if under 
similar conditions or even if of the same sex are we warranted in judg- 
ing of the entire highly educated part of our population. The female 
college graduate must be classed among the highly educated, and the 
number of children in her family is below that of the native popu- 
lation; it is lower than that of any other group, whilst that of the 
average male graduate family is higher. Then again the college alum- 
nus can not without further investigation be accepted as a standard, 
for even the highly educated male, as appears from the facts presented 
by Professor Dexter in his recent study of ' High Grade Men : in College 
and Out.' He shows that hardly more than one third, 37 per cent, of 
the 8,602 supposedly successful and prominent Americans mentioned 
in 'Who's Who' are college graduates, and only 2.2 per cent, of all now 
living alumni are included among these 8,000 supposedly higher type 
and most representative of living Americans. Eegardless of this 
the variation in marriage and birth rate of the different elements of this 
group of the highly educated make it impracticable to consider them 
jointly. 

These facts, together with the limited data on hand, make it im- 
possible as yet to reach conclusions of any kind as to the part taken 
by the highly educated portion of our population as a class in race 



RACE DECLINE. 182 

reproduction; it is the male college graduate whom we here consider 
and compare, not with the male of the entire population, but with the 
native-born American only. I emphasize this as the two groups, the 
native- and foreign-born of our citizens differ widely as to the part they 
play in reproduction of race. If the term highly educated is here 
used it refers solely to the college graduate. 

A high marriage rate and an average of 2.1 surviving children to 
the graduate family as compared to 1.9 for the native-born male 
throughout the state tells us plainly that, contrary to all theory and 
supposition, higher education does not mean diminished reproduction. 
It is the American nationality that stands for lessened marriage and 
low birth rate, in striking contrast to the foreign-born of our citizens 
with families of from 3 to 5 children, 4.5 in Massachusetts with 3 
surviving, and this is true for all classes of foreign-born. 

Graduates as a group make an exceptionally good showing, and 
college alumni are to be congratulated upon the standard maintained; 
the net fecundity is greater, family size is larger than that of the 
general native population and marriage rate of some groups is higher, 
so that reproduction is more nearly approximated by the college grad- 
uate family, contrary to European statistics for professional men, 
who, as already stated, are assumed to have a marriage rate two thirds 
less than the average male of the population. Class reproduction for 
college graduates is higher than it is for the population at large. 

The average marriage rate for 1,614 graduates of the classes 1870- 
79 from Yale, Princeton, Brown and Bowdoin is 79.4 per cent, and for 
a corresponding group of Harvard graduates, 1,401 of the classes 
1872-80, it is 71.09 per cent., a rate so much lower than that for 
graduates at the other institutions named that we must differentiate. 
The average of these 3,015 alumni of both groups is 75.7 per cent. 

The marriage rate of Harvard graduates varies so much from that 
of the alumni of all other institutions so far investigated that the 
Cambridge graduate can evidently not serve in this respect as an 
index for family conditions among college men any more than he 
can be looked upon as representative of that other element of the 
highly educated portion of our population, the female college graduate 
with a marriage rate of from 30 per cent, to 50 per cent, or, for still 
another, the highly educated man who has never received an academic 
degree and this, as has recently been shown, is a surprisingly large 
number in this country; a fact deserving of note since the conjugal 
status of the 'highly educated' has been treated on the basis of that of 
the Harvard graduate by President Eliot in his recent much quoted 
report and coming from so eminent an authority the statements made 
have been widely disseminated and generally accepted. The general 



i8 3 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



marriage average of 79.4 per cent, for a group of graduates from four 
colleges and 71.09 per cent, for Harvard alumni must be compared 
with 79.02 per cent, for the native male population of the age 
group 40-49 years, and is greatly to the credit of college men. By 
reason of this high marriage rate the number of surviving chil- 
dren for 100 graduate members of a group or class, married and 
unmarried, is larger than it is for the less highly educated and 
in fact larger than it is for all other elements of our native male 
population, even where the number of children to the married 
couple is the same; to this the Harvard graduate is an ex- 
ception; with both family size and marriage rate lower than 
the graduate average and lower than that of the native-born 
male of Massachusetts (of a comparable age group — 40-49 years), 
reproduction per class is naturally less. A Princeton class, if 
we may take '76 as an example, more than reproduces itself: it 
reproduces not alone the married couple, 2.7 surviving children to 
each, but more than reproduces the entire class, 2.3 to each class 
member, married and unmarried (2.3-net class reproduction). Brown 
just reproduces itself with 2.26 living children to the married gradu- 
ates and precisely 2 to each member of the class. 

Table IV. 
Reproduction of Class and Race. 



o . 


College. 


Year of 
Graduating. 


Number 
in Class. 


Per Cent. 
Married. 


Number of Surviving Children. 


1° 


To Each 

Married 

Graduate. 


To Each Mem- 
ber of Class 
Married and 
Single. 


To Class 
of 200. 


i 

i 

10 


Princeton ... 
Yale 


'76 

'72 
'60-79 

'69 

73 

75 and 77 

72-'80 


118 
53 

1,105 
118 
113 
107 

1,401 


80.4 
88.7 
78.4 
81.3 
82.3 
86.9 
71.09 


2.7 

2.26 

2.28 

2.05 

1.98 

1.88 

1.86 


2.3 

2.— 

1.79 

1.66 

1.57 

1.56 

1.32 


460 
400 
358 


i 


Yale 


332 


i 


Yale 


314 


2 
9 


Harvard .... 


312 
264 


25 




70-'80 


3,015 


75.7 


2.1 


1.58 


316 



Yale, Princeton, Brown and Bowdoin Compared with Harvard. 



16 

9 



Y. P. Br. Bo. 
Harvard* 



'60-'80 

72-'80 



1,614 
1,401 



79.4 
71.09 



2.28 
1.86 



1.81 
1.32 



362 
264 



This table is arranged according to rate of reproduction. 



All classes later than 1870 of other institutions so far considered 
fail to reproduce themselves, most so Harvard alumni. Yale graduates 
very nearly reproduce themselves with 2.28 surviving children to the 

* The 6 Harvard classes 25 years out '72-77 (inclusive) with a marriage 
rate of 71.06 have a class reproduction of 1.4 or 280 for a group of 200. 



RACE DECLINE. 184 

married graduate and a net class reproduction of 1.78 (i. e., for each 
member of the class). Next comes the single Yale class of '73 with 
a class reproduction of 1.57 children. The two Bowdoin classes 1875 
and '77 are represented by 1.5 and the 9 Harvard classes 1872-80 by 

1.3 children for each graduate, married and unmarried (1872-77 by 

1.4 and 1878-80 by 1.17 respectively). 

A great decrease has indeed taken place in the birth rate of 
graduate families, but not quite to the same extent as among other 
groups of the same social grade : the wealthy or leisure class, the well- 
to-do invariably do less towards reproducing themselves than does the 
population at large; the college graduate, the highly educated male, 
does more. 

In view of the data here presented the college graduate does more 
towards reproducing the population than does the native American of 
other classes — this is true even of Bowdoin alumni but not of those 
of Harvard with a lower marriage rate. 

I am well aware that this statement must cause surprise. It is 
contrary to all tradition, but in harmony with the conditions known 
to exist in all countries of the old world where recent statistical study 
has enabled us to make such comparisons. It proclaims that higher 
education is no cause of race decline, but that on the contrary, if not a 
safeguard against the continued decrease of fertility, it is the sheet 
anchor to which we must look for the race's preservation. College 
graduates ' families produce the largest number of surviving children : 
it is among the wealthy that family size is smaller than it is among 
the average native population, and this proves a fecundity relatively 
still lower as almost all that are born survive, few die, child mortality in 
this group is far below that of the general population as the offspring 
is surrounded by the most favorable sanitary and hygienic conditions 
attainable. 

Resume. — The data now available indicate that the highly edu- 
cated male element does more towards reproducing itself than any 
other large group of our native population. The marriage rate is the 
same, and the number of surviving children to the family is greater 
than it is for the native population at large, so that we can no longer 
accuse the college graduate or, if I may say, 'the highly educated 
male portion of our population,' of having an exceptionally small 
family, and of doing less than other groups towards reproducing the 
population; nor must we lay the blame for the low fecundity of the 
native American family on higher education. Shortening the term 
of college study will effect no change. Wealth, luxury and social 
ambition are cause of the diminishing size of the family and of race 



1 8s POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 

decline. The factors are the same which have been active in earlier 
civilizations as they are to-day: increasing wealth and the introduction 
of foreign manners are pointed out as causing in ancient Borne the 
lessening fertility among the better classes which preceded political 
disruption. Cause and effect were the same and even the methods 
employed to thwart the tendencies of nature were the same: "Few 
children are born in the gilded bed, to the wealthy dame, so many 
artifices has she, and so many drugs, to render women sterile and 
destroy life within the womb" (Juvenal Sat. VI., 11. 594). 

The assumption of a false social position, the struggle for the 
attainment of luxury even more than its possession, leads to the limita- 
tion of the family, by 'the increased amount of restraint exercised,' as 
one author delicately expresses it, but to speak without circumlocution, 
by often ruinous measures for the prevention of conception, and by 
criminal means for the destruction of the product of such conception 
if it does accidentally occur. Such, in plain words, are the causes 
which lead to the small size of the American family of all classes. 



To all who have aided me in this research: 
I take great pleasure in expressing my keen appreciation of the in- 
terest shown by those to whom I have applied for the data necessary to 
this study and I hereby tender my sincere thanks for figures furnished 
and for documents generously placed at my disposal by the officers of 
Yale and Princeton Universities, by the Class Secretaries of the 
classes quoted of Yale, Princeton, Harvard and Bowdoin as well as to 
the graduates of these institutions who have kindly aided me in my 
search for facts. G. J. E. 



Errors in the magazine article. 

In this reprint I have corrected some few slight errors, especially as 
to marriage rate, which have appeared in the magazine article, some by 
reason of delay in proof, others, not discovered until the journal had 
been issued, due to my acceptance without verification of one of the 
figures published in the last presidential report to the Harvard Over- 
seers; these I have now corrected from original sources, from which 
all data here given are taken. 

As my figures for marriage rate among the population differ con- 
siderably from others recently published I here call attention to the fact 
that I have been considering only the American born part of our popu- 
lation and first marriages, of both college graduate and native male, 
whilst mostly this point is overlooked and second and third marriages 
are included. The difference is marked ; the largest number of married 
native born males is in the age group 50 to 60 years, 80.89 per cent, and 
as cited by a recent writer on the subject it is made to appear as high 
as 93 per cent., but this is for first and plural marriages, among the 
whole population, native and foreign, in the age group 60 to 70 years ; 
for the group 50 to 60 it is given by them as 92 per cent, in place of 
80.89 per cent, as given by me. 



